Plant Encyclopedia

Search and identify 1,000+ plants, flowers, trees, and succulents — with care, light, water, and how to tell them apart.

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Persian Ironwood

Persian ironwood is a tough, slow-growing tree celebrated for spectacular multicolored fall foliage and beautiful flaking bark. Its tiny red flowers appear on bare branches in late winter.

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Overcup Oak

Overcup oak is a flood-tolerant white oak of southern US bottomlands, named for the acorn cap that nearly encloses the nut. Its toughness makes it an increasingly popular urban shade tree.

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Kousa Dogwood

Kousa dogwood is an elegant small tree with pointed white bracts in late spring, raspberry-like fruit, and striking exfoliating bark. It is more disease-resistant than the native flowering dogwood.

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Douglas Fir

Douglas fir is a towering western North American conifer prized as a timber and Christmas tree, recognizable by its soft flat needles and distinctive three-pointed bracts protruding from the cones.

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Corn Plant

The corn plant is a sturdy indoor tree with thick woody canes topped by arching, corn-like leaves, often with a yellow-green center stripe. It is famously tolerant of low light and neglect.

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Noble Fir

Noble Fir is a stately Pacific Northwest conifer with blue-green upswept needles and large upright cones. It is one of the most popular and long-lasting Christmas trees.

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Tricolor Beech

Tricolor beech is a striking cultivar of European beech with purple leaves edged in irregular bands of pink and creamy white. It is a slow-growing, eye-catching specimen tree that needs protection from harsh sun.

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Virginia Pine

A small, scrubby pine of the eastern United States that readily colonizes old fields and poor soils. Its short, twisted needles and persistent cones make it a common early-successional and Christmas-tree species.

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Serviceberry

The serviceberry is a hardy deciduous shrub or small tree offering white spring blossoms, colorful summer berries, and brilliant fall color. It is a versatile four-season native plant beloved by gardeners and wildlife alike.

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Dogwood

Flowering dogwood is a small ornamental tree beloved for its spring display of showy white or pink bracts. Native to eastern North America, it offers four-season interest with berries and red fall foliage.

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Cottonwood

Cottonwood is a fast-growing deciduous tree of North American riverbanks, named for the fluffy, cotton-like seeds that fill the air in early summer. Large and vigorous, it provides quick shade and vital riparian habitat.

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Black Oak

Black oak is a large red-oak-group tree of eastern North America with dark, blocky bark and bristle-tipped lobed leaves. Its inner bark once yielded the yellow dye quercitron.

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Silver Dollar Plant

A shrubby jade relative with round, silvery blue-gray leaves edged in red, resembling stacked silver coins. An easy, long-lived succulent that can grow into a small bonsai-like tree.

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Rowan

The rowan, or mountain ash, is a graceful deciduous tree with feathery foliage, creamy spring flower clusters, and vivid orange-red autumn berries. Hardy and wildlife-friendly, it is rich in northern European folklore.

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Kwanzan Cherry

A flowering cherry prized for its showy, fully double, deep-pink pompom blossoms in mid-spring. Its upright vase shape and dense blooms make it a popular street and lawn tree.

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Holly

A classic evergreen shrub or small tree with glossy, spiny leaves and bright red berries, long associated with winter and Christmas. Most hollies need separate male and female plants for berries to form.

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Crepe Myrtle

Crepe myrtle is a small deciduous tree or large shrub beloved for its long-lasting, crinkled summer flower clusters, smooth peeling bark, and brilliant fall color, thriving in hot climates.

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Black Locust

Black locust is a fast-growing deciduous tree with fragrant white spring flowers and extremely hard, rot-resistant wood. A nitrogen-fixing legume, it is valued for timber and erosion control but can be invasive.

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Red Oak

Northern red oak is a fast-growing, adaptable shade tree with pointed, bristle-tipped leaf lobes and reddish fall color. Its strong wood is a leading commercial hardwood across eastern North America.

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Ponderosa Pine

Ponderosa pine is a tall, drought-hardy evergreen conifer of western North America, known for its long needles, large cones and puzzle-piece bark that smells of vanilla or butterscotch. It is a major western timber tree.

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White Oak

White oak is a majestic, long-lived North American hardwood with rounded leaf lobes and prized, water-tight timber. A keystone forest tree, it can live for centuries and supports a vast web of wildlife.

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Pin Oak

Pin oak is a fast-growing deciduous oak known for its distinctive layered branching, deeply lobed bristle-tipped leaves, and brilliant red fall color, making it a popular street and park tree.

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Green Ash

Green ash is a tough, adaptable deciduous tree once widely planted for shade, with compound leaves and yellow fall color; its survival is now threatened across North America by the emerald ash borer.

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Flowering Dogwood

Flowering dogwood is a beloved small ornamental tree whose spring branches are clouded in showy white or pink bracts. It offers four-season interest with summer berries, scarlet fall color, and tiered branching.

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